{{Article summary text|Information on man pages, along with recommendations on how to improve their usage}}

{{Article summary text|Information on man pages, along with recommendations on how to improve their usage}}

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==Searching manuals==

==Searching manuals==

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Whilst the {{Ic|man}} utility allows users to display man pages, a problem arises when one knows not the exact name of the desired manual page in the first place! Fortunately, the {{Ic|-k}} or {{Ic|--apropos}} options can be used to search the manual page descriptions for instances of a given keyword. For example, to search for man pages related to "password":

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Whilst the {{Ic|man}} utility allows users to display man pages, a problem arises when one knows not the exact name of the desired manual page in the first place! Fortunately, the {{Ic|-k}} or {{Ic|--apropos}} options can be used to search the manual page descriptions for instances of a given keyword.

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The research feature is provided by a dedicated cache. By default you may not have any cache built and all your searches will give you the ''nothing appropriate'' result. You can generate the cache or update it by running

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# mandb

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You should run it everytime a new manpage is installed.

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Now you can begin your search.

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For example, to search for man pages related to "password":

$ man -k password

$ man -k password

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The given keyword is interpreted as a regular expression by default.

The given keyword is interpreted as a regular expression by default.

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If you want to do a more in-depth search by matching the keywords found in the whole articles, you can use the {{ic|-K}} option:

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$ man -K password

==Colored man pages==

==Colored man pages==

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For some users, color-enabled man pages allow for a clearer presentation and easier digestion of the content. Given that users new to Linux are prone to spend a considerable amount of time familiarizing themselves with basic userspace tools, setting up a comfortable environment is a necessity to most.

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Color-enabled man pages allow for a clearer presentation and easier digestion of the content.

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There are two prevalent methods for achieving colored man pages: using {{Ic|less}}, or opting for {{Ic|most}}.

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There are two prevalent methods for achieving colored man pages: using {{Ic|most}}, or opting for {{Ic|less}}. The former is simpler to configure, at the expense of the advanced functionality that is native to {{Ic|less}}.

This method has the advantage that {{Ic|less}} has a bigger feature set than {{Ic|most}}, and is the default for viewing man pages.

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===First method: using 'most'===

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Add the following to a shell configuration file. For [[Bash]] it would be {{ic|~/.bashrc}}:

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Install {{package Official|most}} using [[pacman]]:

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<pre>

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man() {

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env \

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LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$(printf "\e[1;31m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_md=$(printf "\e[1;31m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_me=$(printf "\e[0m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_se=$(printf "\e[0m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_so=$(printf "\e[1;44;33m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$(printf "\e[0m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_us=$(printf "\e[1;32m") \

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man "$@"

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}

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</pre>

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To customize the colors, see [[Wikipedia:ANSI escape code]] for reference.

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===Second (unrecommended) method: using 'most'===

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The basic function of 'most' is similar to {{Ic|less}} and {{Ic|more}}, but it has a smaller feature set. Configuring most to use colors is easier than using less, but additional configuration is necessary to make most behave like less.

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Install {{Pkg|most}} using [[pacman]]:

# pacman -S most

# pacman -S most

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This is similar to {{Ic|less}} and {{Ic|more}}, yet allows rendering colored text in an easier way.

Edit {{ic|/etc/man_db.conf}}, uncomment the pager definition and change it to:

Edit {{ic|/etc/man_db.conf}}, uncomment the pager definition and change it to:

Alternatively, getting an approximate coloured result in manual pages with {{Ic|less}} is also a possibility. This method has the advantage that {{Ic|less}} has a bigger feature set than {{Ic|most}}, and that might be the preference for advanced users.

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Add the following to a shell configuration file. For [[Bash]] it would be {{ic|~/.bashrc}}:

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<pre>

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man() {

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env \

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LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$(printf "\e[1;31m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_md=$(printf "\e[1;31m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_me=$(printf "\e[0m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_se=$(printf "\e[0m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_so=$(printf "\e[1;44;33m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$(printf "\e[0m") \

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LESS_TERMCAP_us=$(printf "\e[1;32m") \

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man "$@"

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}

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</pre>

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To customize the colors, see [[Wikipedia:ANSI escape code]] for reference.

A quick way to add color to manual pages viewed on {{Package Official|xterm}}/{{Ic|uxterm}} or {{Package Official|rxvt-unicode}} can be made modifying the {{ic|~/.Xdefaults}} file.

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A quick way to add color to manual pages viewed on {{Pkg|xterm}}/{{Ic|uxterm}} or {{Pkg|rxvt-unicode}} can be made modifying the {{ic|~/.Xresources}} file.

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{{Note|If {{ic|~/.Xdefaults}} does not work for you, you can try using {{ic|~/.Xresources}}.}}

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{{Note|If {{ic|~/.Xresources}} does not work for you, you can try using {{ic|~/.Xdefaults}}.}}

Open that file in an editor and add this lines:

Open that file in an editor and add this lines:

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*VT100.colorULMode: true

*VT100.colorULMode: true

*VT100.colorUL: cyan

*VT100.colorUL: cyan

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which ''replaces'' the decorations with the colors. Also add

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*VT100.veryBoldColors: 6

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if you want colors and decorations (bold or underline) ''at the same time''. See {{ic|man xterm}} for a description of the {{ic|veryBoldColors}} resource.

(For rxvt-unicode)

(For rxvt-unicode)

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Launch a new {{Ic|xterm/uxterm}} or {{Ic|rxvt-unicode}} and you should see colorful man pages.

Launch a new {{Ic|xterm/uxterm}} or {{Ic|rxvt-unicode}} and you should see colorful man pages.

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This combination puts colors to '''bold''' and <u>underlined</u> words in {{Ic|xterm/uxterm}} or to '''bold''', <u>underlined</u>, and ''italicized'' text in {{Ic|rxvt-unicode}}. You can play with different combinations of this attributes (see the [http://pub.ligatura.org/fs/xfree86/xresources/xterm sources] of this item).

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This combination puts colors to '''bold''' and <u>underlined</u> words in {{Ic|xterm/uxterm}} or to '''bold''', <u>underlined</u>, and ''italicized'' text in {{Ic|rxvt-unicode}}. You can play with different combinations of these attributes (see the [http://pub.ligatura.org/fs/xfree86/xresources/xterm sources] of this item).

man pages have always been printable: they are written in troff, which is fundamentally a typesetting language. If you have ghostscript installed, converting a man page to PDF is actually very easy: {{ic|<nowiki>man -t <manpage> | ps2pdf - <pdf></nowiki>}}. [https://www.google.com/search?q=manpage+pdf+troff&num=100&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=5BZpUI3oH6rI2AXvx4CoAw&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1321&bih=1100 This google image search] should give you an idea of what the result looks like; it may not be to everybody's liking.

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Caveats: Fonts are generally limited to Times at hardcoded sizes. There are no hyperlinks. Some man pages were specifically designed for terminal viewing, and won't look right in PS or PDF form.

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The following perl script converts man pages to PDFs, caches the PDFs in the {{ic|$HOME/.manpdf/}} directory, and calls a PDF viewer, specifically [http://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/mupdf/ mupdf].

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{{hc|Usage: manpdf [<section>] <manpage>|<nowiki>

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#!/usr/bin/perl

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use File::stat;

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$pdfdir = $ENV{"HOME"}."/.manpdf";

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-d $pdfdir || mkdir $pdfdir || die "can't create $pdfdir";

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$manpage = $ARGV[0];

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chop($manpath = `man -w $manpage`);

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die if $?;

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$maninfo = stat($manpath) or die;

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$manpath =~ s@.*/man./(.*)(\.(gz|bz2))?$@$1@;

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$pdfpath = "$pdfdir/$manpath.pdf";

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$pdftime = 0;

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if (-f $pdfpath) {

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$pdfinfo = stat($pdfpath) or die;

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$pdftime = $pdfinfo->mtime;

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}

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if (!-f $pdfpath || $maninfo->mtime > $pdftime) {

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system "man -t $manpage | ps2pdf -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen - $pdfpath";

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}

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die if !-f $pdfpath;

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if (!fork) {

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open(STDOUT, "/dev/null");

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open(STDERR, "/dev/null");

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exec "mupdf", "-r", "96", $pdfpath;

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#exec "acroread", $pdfpath;

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}

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</nowiki>}}

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==Noteworthy manpages==

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Here follows a non-exhaustive list of noteworthy pages that might help you understand a lot of things more in-depth. Some of them might serve as a good reference (like the ascii table).

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* ascii(7)

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* boot(7)

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* charsets(7)

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* chmod(1)

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* credentials(7)

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* fstab(5)

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* hier(7)

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* inittab(5)

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* locale(1P)(5)(7)

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* printf(3)

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* regex(7)

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* signal(7)

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* term(5)(7)

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* termcap(5)

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* terminfo(5)

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* utf-8(7)

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More generally, have a look at category 7 pages:

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man -s 7 -k ".*"

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Arch Linux specific pages:

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* archlinux(7)

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* mkinitcpio(8)

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* pacman(8)

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* pacman-key(8)

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* pacman.conf(5)

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* rc.conf(5)

Revision as of 04:17, 1 October 2012

Man pages (abbreviation for "manual pages") are the extensive documentation that comes preinstalled with almost all substantial UNIX-like operating systems, including Arch Linux. The command used to display them is man.

In spite of their scope, man pages are designed to be self-contained documents, consequentially limiting themselves to referring to other man pages when discussing related subjects. This is in sharp contrast with the hyperlink-aware info files, GNU's attempt at replacing the traditional man page format.

Man pages are usually referred to by their name, followed by their section number in parentheses. Often there are multiple man pages of the same name, such as man(1) and man(7). In this case, give man the section number followed by the name of the man page, for example:

$ man 5 passwd

to read the man page on /etc/passwd, rather than the passwd utility.

Very brief descriptions of programs can be read out of man pages without displaying the whole page using the whatis command. For example, for a brief description of ls, type:

$ whatis ls

and whatis will output "list directory contents."

Format

Man pages all follow a fairly standard format, which helps in navigating them. Some sections which are often present include:

NAME - The name of the command and a one-line statement of its purpose.

SYNOPSIS - A list of the options and arguments a command takes or the parameters the function takes and its header file.

DESCRIPTION - A more in depth description of a command or function's purpose and workings.

EXAMPLES - Common examples, usually ranging from the simple to the relatively complex.

OPTIONS - Descriptions of each of the options a command takes and what they do.

EXIT STATUS - The meanings of different exit codes.

FILES - Files related to a command or function.

BUGS - Problems with the command or function that are pending repair. Also known as KNOWN BUGS.

SEE ALSO - A list of related commands or functions.

AUTHOR, HISTORY, COPYRIGHT, LICENSE, WARRANTY - Information about the program, its past, its terms of use, and its creator.

Searching manuals

Whilst the man utility allows users to display man pages, a problem arises when one knows not the exact name of the desired manual page in the first place! Fortunately, the -k or --apropos options can be used to search the manual page descriptions for instances of a given keyword.

The research feature is provided by a dedicated cache. By default you may not have any cache built and all your searches will give you the nothing appropriate result. You can generate the cache or update it by running

# mandb

You should run it everytime a new manpage is installed.

Now you can begin your search.
For example, to search for man pages related to "password":

$ man -k password

or:

$ man --apropos password

This is equivalent to calling the apropos command:

$ apropos password

The given keyword is interpreted as a regular expression by default.

If you want to do a more in-depth search by matching the keywords found in the whole articles, you can use the -K option:

$ man -K password

Colored man pages

Color-enabled man pages allow for a clearer presentation and easier digestion of the content.
There are two prevalent methods for achieving colored man pages: using less, or opting for most.

Second (unrecommended) method: using 'most'

The basic function of 'most' is similar to less and more, but it has a smaller feature set. Configuring most to use colors is easier than using less, but additional configuration is necessary to make most behave like less.
Install most using pacman:

# pacman -S most

Edit /etc/man_db.conf, uncomment the pager definition and change it to:

DEFINE pager most -s

Test the new setup by typing:

$ man whatever_man_page

Modifying the color values requires editing ~/.mostrc (creating the file if it is not present) or editing /etc/most.conf for system-wide changes. Example ~/.mostrc:

if you want colors and decorations (bold or underline) at the same time. See man xterm for a description of the veryBoldColors resource.

(For rxvt-unicode)

URxvt.colorIT: #87af5f
URxvt.colorBD: #d7d7d7
URxvt.colorUL: #87afd7

Save and run:

$ xrdb -load ~/.Xresources

Launch a new xterm/uxterm or rxvt-unicode and you should see colorful man pages.
This combination puts colors to bold and underlined words in xterm/uxterm or to bold, underlined, and italicized text in rxvt-unicode. You can play with different combinations of these attributes (see the sources of this item).

Reading man pages with a browser

Instead of the standard interface, using browsers such as lynx and Firefox to view man pages allows users to reap info pages' main benefit: hyperlinked text.
Additionally, KDE users can read man pages in Konqueror using:

Viewing man pages as PDFs

man pages have always been printable: they are written in troff, which is fundamentally a typesetting language. If you have ghostscript installed, converting a man page to PDF is actually very easy: man -t <manpage> | ps2pdf - <pdf>. This google image search should give you an idea of what the result looks like; it may not be to everybody's liking.

Caveats: Fonts are generally limited to Times at hardcoded sizes. There are no hyperlinks. Some man pages were specifically designed for terminal viewing, and won't look right in PS or PDF form.

The following perl script converts man pages to PDFs, caches the PDFs in the $HOME/.manpdf/ directory, and calls a PDF viewer, specifically mupdf.